I question things which people take for granted. I would have been that kid who said the emperor was naked. In real life that kid would probably have been lynched, but I'll take my chances...
I believe truth inherently valuable, no matter how well intentioned the ideology it dispels may be.
I also write about random interesting things from my personal life.

10 March 2014

pre-history matriarchies

[The claim is frequently made that matriarchies were] "... a worldwide
phenomenon that stretched back through prehistory to the very
origins of the human race. These "matriarchies"... were not crude reversals of patriarchal power, but
models of peace, plenty, harmony with nature, and, significantly, sex
egalitarianism."

"Except for one small problem...
Poking holes in the "evidence" for this myth was, to rely on cliché,
like shooting fish in a barrel. After a long day of research in the
library, I could go out with friends and entertain them with the latest
argument I'd read for matriarchal prehistory, made up entirely—I
pointed out—of a highly ideological reading of a couple of prehistoric
artifacts accompanied by some dubious anthropology, perhaps a
little astrology, and a fatuous premise ... or two or three."

"My irritation with the historical
claims made by the myth's partisans masks a deeper discontent with
the myth's assumptions. There is a theory of sex and gender embedded
in the myth of matriarchal prehistory, and it is neither original
nor revolutionary. Women are defined quite narrowly as those who
give birth and nurture, who identify themselves in terms of their relationships,
and who are closely allied with the body, nature, and sex—usually
for unavoidable reasons of their biological makeup. This image
of women is drastically revalued in feminist matriarchal myth,
such that it is not a mark of shame or subordination, but of pride and
power. But this image is nevertheless quite conventional..."

"Whatever positive effects this myth has on individual women, they
must be balanced against the historical and archaeological evidence
the myth ignores or misinterprets and the sexist assumptions it leaves
Undisturbed. The myth of matriarchal prehistory postures as "documented
fact," as "to date the most scientifically plausible account of
the available information." These claims can be—and will be here—shown
to be false. Relying on matriarchal myth in the face of the evidence
that challenges its veracity leaves feminists open to charges of
vacuousness and irrelevance that we cannot afford to court. And the
gendered stereotypes upon which matriarchal myth rests persistently
work to flatten out differences among women; to exaggerate differences
between women and men; and to hand women an identity that
is symbolic, timeless, and archetypal, instead of giving them the freedom
to craft identities that suit their individual temperaments, skills,
preferences, and moral and political commitments."

"
The enemies of feminism have long posed issues of patriarchy and
sexism in pseudoscientific and historical terms. It is not in feminist interests
to join them at this game, especially when it is so (relatively)
easy to undermine the ground rules...Discovering—or
more to the point, inventing—prehistoric ages in
which women and men lived in harmony and equality is a burden that
feminists need not, and should not bear. Clinging to shopworn notions
of gender and promoting a demonstrably fictional past can only
hurt us over the long run as we work to create a future that helps all
women, children, and men flourish."